Continuing daily tours in Porter Fork.

Today, Thursday, 12/12, was a morning meander up the summer trail towards Porter Pass, just west of Mt. Raymond. Vague intentions of gaining the pass, which is at 9400 feet, and wandering around, which I abandoned in the face of high PI and strong winds.

Photo is of one of the West Raymond paths at the point I pulled the plug, around 9000 feet at the bottom of the main historic path. The peak is normally visible from this spot but obscured today by wind and snow.

Terrain is convoluted but basically one large avalanche path fed by many small paths at my bail point.

Yesterday, Wednesday, 12/11 toured Gobblers and it appeared the surface hoar feathers had settled down but were still present. Today small two inch columns were failing on isolation at the new snow interface. New snow is dense and bonding poorly to the old snow. Evolving set-up is heavy new snow on top of weak old snow.

Minor cracking in the new snow at my bail point. Calling the danger during the day Thursday considerable. In the moment of my bail was not interested in any steep or exposed terrain.

The U’s short range ensemble mean is about a foot of snow between Thursday morning and Friday morning in upper Collins. If this verifies I would expect a widespread natural cycle overnight into Friday morning with dangerous conditions during the day Friday. My forecast is for considerable danger Friday but will not be surprised if the danger is actually high. Avalanches initiating in the new snow, stepping down and taking out the entire snowpack seem possible Friday.